Hospitality management instructors train visiting Vietnamese faculty

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Faculty members from Vietnam are studying at Penn State to improve the hospitality and tourism curriculum at their home university to address an anticipated growth in international tourism.

Train the Trainer, in its first year, is a four-week program for hospitality and tourism faculty with Duy Tan University in Da Nang, Vietnam. The program is offered through the Hospitality Leadership Institute in Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management.

Participants are staying on the University Park campus for the month of July.

The program is part of a four-year agreement between the universities. For the second and third years, Penn State faculty will travel to Vietnam to train faculty members. In year four, the Vietnamese faculty will return to University Park.

The overarching goal is to demonstrate for the Vietnamese group how Penn State delivers hospitality curriculum with a management emphasis.

This year, participants are learning about hotel and restaurant management, food safety, customer service and culinary skills, including preparing casual cuisine popular among Americans. During the training, Duy Tan faculty members are essentially playing the role of students while Penn State faculty members demonstrate how they execute their hospitality management curriculum.

A major component of the training includes demonstrating for Duy Tan faculty how Penn State utilizes Café Laura, the student-managed on-campus restaurant, as a classroom that serves food to the public. Through that process, the Duy Tan group prepares meals in Café Laura, including a theme dinner open to the general public. The curriculum is similar to a course Penn State students take to gain thorough restaurant management skills.

George Ruth and Jeff Heim, senior instructors of hospitality management, are training the group.

“Duy Tan faculty members want to get a sense of how our hospitality management program works and how to integrate our curriculum into their own courses,” said Ruth.“Their goal is to better prepare their students to work in the hospitality and tourism industry in Vietnam. Through this partnership we are able to introduce them to different meats, fruits and vegetables as well as current kitchen equipment and techniques, all while showing them how to incorporate management skills into their curriculum.”

Ruth Ann Jackson, instructor of hospitality management and director of the Hospitality Leadership Institute, said the partnership has been successful.

“It has been a seamless process because this group is so eager to participate and learn new skills and concepts,” Jackson said. “I’m really excited for Duy Tan University because I think the faculty members participating in the training are really taking full advantage of the opportunity.”

Minh Nguyen, dean of faculty of hospitality and tourism at Duy Tan University, helped facilitate the visit to Penn State. He is also participating in the training.

“Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management is one of the top five hospitality programs in the United States,” Nguyen said. “This is a very good opportunity for our staff to get training from Penn State professors.”

Hoa Nguyen, an instructor in tourism, said the training will help her and her colleagues better equip their students with skills necessary for the growing tourism industry in Vietnam.

“We are excited about the program Penn State planned for us,” said Hoa Nguyen. “We would like to apply the management approach Penn State has in its program to the hospitality program in Vietnam.”

The agreement with Duy Tan University was developed with support from Vice Provost Hang Le at Duy Tan University; Director Susan LeWay and Program Coordinator Lisa Clapper of the Outreach Office of in the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State; and Director Jennifer Campbell and Global Collaborations Manager Shelly Heron at Penn State’s Office of Global Programs.